


What Will Always Be

by De Orakle (Delphi)



Category: Elfquest
Genre: Aftermath, Canonical Character Death, Drama, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-01
Updated: 2001-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/De%20Orakle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two grieving elves in the wake of Madcoil's massacre.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Will Always Be

**Author's Note:**

> Date of publication uncertain.

I can't hear it.

Would you believe me if I told you that?

On a night so many yesterdays ago, you told me you admired how I lost myself in the always-now. As if even as a cub, you didn't follow the Way more closely than I ever could.

Maybe you'd believe me tonight, though. Maybe you already know. Who among us is allowed the comfort of wolf-thought tonight, when the past and future are shouting at us through the fog of Wolfrider memory?

Two nights ago—it was only two nights ago—there was the tribe and there was the Holt. These things had always been, river and rain as they were to each other, bound together, one and the same. Bearclaw's belly-laugh had always rung through the forest, and Joyleaf's gentle Sendings had always touched us all. There had always been Foxfur's soft hands and sweet, sweet attentions. And the Holt, with its voice of a hundred, had always echoed with life 'tween wolf and elfin ears, with the stars looking down on all of it with their fiery eyes. These things had always been, and they would always be.

No more.

No more.

They're dead, Cutter. They're dead and all is quiet—unbearably quiet.

There is noise, of course. Even I, who sees pictures among the stars as clearly as trees in the wood, can't imagine a storm or creature that could ever bring true silence to our forest. But noise is all it is. The voices of wolf and elf and bird squabble for space, choosing cacophony over melody.

The breeze stirs, rippling the grass like waves on the water. It must be warm for all the sucker-bugs and little star cousins to be buzzing about so late, but I'm numb as a bare-skinned human in the season of white cold. You don't look any better down there with your arms wrapped so tightly around your body. You'll leave bruises.

Do you remember...when you first started walking, and you'd sneak into my hollow while I slept? I would wake sometimes at dawn to find you curled up against me, and Bearclaw—fresh from another late-hour adventure—smiling in at us. You were so warm then, your little heart beating strong against my skin.

I'm cold—so cold, but my head is hot as fire. You can't see me from where you're sitting, but I've a hunter's view of you as I lie headfirst down the hill moss-side of Father Tree. We feel the same wind, you and I, a wind that carries the grumbling and growls of the bond-pack as they sort through their ranks in the wake of their loss. Our loss.

I can feel Starjumper's excitement like a dagger in my mind, sharp-edged and painful against my tiredness. He's a strong one, my wolf, and he's awash with pride and fondness from putting down Woodlock's upstart pup. There's a fuzzy anxiety there too, a touch of confusion swirling between two scent-thoughts: _Alpha—Not-Quite-Alpha._

Nightrunner, surely, and Clearbrook's Longtooth? The scent of blood lies ghostly in my nose, and I see your shoulder twitch with every lupine yelp. Don't you worry about your Nightrunner. He's as born to lead as his bond-mate.

Up and up and up, Timmain's eyes meet mine with yellow-hot light. The star-picture is exactly a hand's width above land's edge from this distance; in the sky, at least, things are as they should be.

Look up, Cutter.

The Father Tree has fallen silent. They're Sending, then. Probably holding forth against Strongbow, fighting over matters of leadership in ways not so different from our wolf-friends. I have no need to join them—they know how I feel and where my loyalties lie. And in their hearts, I'm sure they know what must be.

So here I lie, keeping an eye on my chief—because you _are_ my chief, Cutter, doubt that not. No matter what they're saying in the boughs and boles of Father Tree, no matter what you're saying to yourself. When Treestump drew your hair into the chief's knot—no, it was before that. When you sent the call to rally against Madcoil, not one of us hesitated. I think that maybe...maybe you became chief in the moment that foul creature set Bearclaw's spirit free.

Madcoil, and the noises it made as it—

Madcoil crashing through the trees...through the trees, the cricket-birds call back and forth from their hidden perches high above us. One of them is shriller than its flock-mates, rustling leaves with its nervous wings. I've never been one for bird-speak, though I've envied how close those winged ones come to the stars, but I can imagine the bird's anxious argument: "The smell of the monster is still here. The scent of death won't go away." And the flock's repetitive reply: "But this is home. This is home."

I see your head cock at the rolling chatter; you're probably listening to me as well. Your ears may not be as sharp as mine, but they're keen enough that you're forever overhearing my business. I haven't been able to sneak up on you since you were a raw cub who'd squeal in surprise, and you're far from a cub now, despite the few seasons you've seen. That makes me sadder than you can know, little soul-brother.

If you were a cub still, I wouldn't be up here watching from a distance that isn't just space. If you were a cub, I'd be sitting beside you, holding you close while we wept.

What can I say to you? Bearclaw and Joyleaf were mother and father to me as well. Rain healed my tumble-scrapes in cubhood as he did yours, and we listened the two of us together to Longbranch's stories. But there is a difference—one that can't quite be touched, but it is there. Ever since I was a cub, there have been nights I've spent at Holt's edge in the company of the stars, and you...you have always been such a child of the tribe. And now we must ask you to be father to us as well.

I am so sorry.

I...I still have blood on my clothes, you know. Not Madcoil's—that, I've scrubbed raw from my hands. The blood is dark and elfin, and not much of it can be my own. How can it be that so many of us are dead that I don't even know whose lifeblood stains my leathers?

The wind shifts lakewards, and after the whistle and rustle subsides, I hear you sniff. Are you crying, Cutter?

_You smell like a troll, Skywise._

...relief and laughter, so sweet in my chest, long-forgotten pleasures like the whispery warmth of your thoughts.

So do you, I'll bet. I'm just lucky I'm not downwind.

Silence, and that's invitation enough between us. I can see the angry tension in your body, but even when those teeth of yours are bared, I've never feared for my own throat.

My legs are slow to remember how to hold me up as I sidestep down the incline. I'm so very tired, and it's much too easy to pretend that I'm really asleep with a belly full of dreamberries—that Foxfur's kiss will soothe me out of nightmares.

_They're dead, Skywise_.

There is no anger there, no pain—just a stark wonder, as if you've only now realized the truth of your Sending. And it's selfish of me, I know, to be grateful for it, but I'm not certain that I can handle your grief along with my own.

I was wrong. You're not cold. You're hot and dry as fever. I can feel the pulse of heat between your arm and mine, but my chill lurks under my skin. I don't think my body knows whether I'm dead or alive.

But they are dead. They're dead and they're not coming back.

_So is Madcoil,_ I reply.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see you slowly nod. You look so...grim. I've seen you sorrowful, and I've seen you sullen more times than I can count, but I have never before seen your face without any passion at all.

Your body, though, belies your face. It's knotted and hard under my arm; your hair is soft on my shoulder. You smell like blood and poison, but underneath it all, you still smell like Cutter. Familiarity, when everything else is in the painful birth of change.

_Everything's changing._ And for an instant, I'm not sure whether it's your Sending or mine. I've always liked that, with you. Only with you.

I smile, and it feels strange on my face, like outgrown clothing.

I hurt so much, Cutter. It's a raw, gaping hurt, wider than anything I've ever felt before, and I just want to crawl into your mind and curl up there.

And so you let me.

_Fahr._ The sigh of your mind is in the deepest hollows of my own, intimate and infinite all at once.

And _Tam._ Past your flesh and blood of ten chiefs, all that you are is Tam—I have always known that. I touch your soul-name gently, cradling it with my thoughts that are almost hands.

I can feel the ugly black pain that is bleeding into the deepest part of you. I won't touch it, Cutter, please don't make me.

_Please._

You're shaking just under your skin, and I search for the words that aren't there. What can I say when the horror is so huge and incomprehensible that the pack cannot even find voice to howl?

I look to the heavens. _There are still the stars. See, Timmorn's paw still marks midnight as it always has, and—_

_Stars!_

Anger—hot—pain. It hurts, but it is your truth, Cutter. No, don't pull away, not now. Be angry, yes—be angry with me.

_What do I care for stars? Your damned star-pictures stay up there, and they laugh at us—they laugh at us, Skywise! They don't care about broken tribes and foul-magic monsters, and mothers and fathers who—who—_

It's all right to cry, little chief. You were strong for your tribe against the monster; let your tribe be strong for you, your tribe of one though it may be until the rest argue through their helplessness into the Way.

I'll let you be the orphan if you'll let me be the bereaved lovemate. We'll mourn, the two of us together.

_Tam—Tam—Tam._

Red anger in your mind, and sorrow as black as the space between the stars, but the blues and greens of the Holt still lie beneath. The tribe has died inside of you, and inside of you it will be reborn.

_Tam._

Your tears wet my lips and dry my tongue with their salt-sadness. You tremble so fiercely against me, like the first time we tumbled, your first time. Touch me, touch me, touch me with your hands that are stronger than Foxfur's. Kiss me with your mouth that's not quite as hungry.

It is rough between us, like the mating of wolves, like the tussling of cubs, because that's how we need it. To tighten my arms around you with all the strength I have left, to feel you squeeze the breath from me...

It hurts, and it feels wonderful because we are alive.

_Tam._

_Fahr._

Yes.

_Soul-brother._

My Sending or yours. There's no difference.

Leather and fur, teeth and skin. Your hair and the grass. The smell of the night, and the scent that is nothing but Cutter. And I'm sobbing, though no tears will come.

So good. So good.

You growl, shake, sigh. The conversation between our bodies quiets, and your tears cool on my chest.

I remember when you would tumble back to Father Tree as a cub, dirty and tangled, and Joyleaf would hand you over to me to pick the brambles from your hair. I run my fingers through that dandelion-fluff of yours and gather it up in my hands. When did you let it down?

It's all right, Cutter, there's no shame in this. It's more than right...it's the Way. The chief's lock suits you, even with your tears and trembling cub's mouth. It's all right.

We both look to the Father Tree, and I can feel your love for me, your fierce love for our people. We killed today and we were killed, but we're still here.

Our fingers entwine. Your hand is of a size with mind now. I'd forgotten that.

_Alpha—Alpha!_ Starjumper's thoughts are a happy intrusion. The smell of Nightrunner, the smell of you.

Big moon has sunk below land's edge, but the starlight is bright and clear. The stars don't mock us, no matter what you might believe. The stars burn their own fires, and they let us burn ours.

I tighten my grip on your hand. Don't think that just because you are chief, you will no longer be my brother in all but blood. _There is Tam and Fahr. There is the pack and the tribe,_ I Send.

_There is._

There is talk again from the Father Tree, loud and urgent, but I am where I'm needed. I can feel your heartbeat, steady and strong. In the sky, Rahnee flees far ahead of the human hunter's spear. This has always been and it will always be. He'll never catch that She-Wolf.

There are always the stars.

I take a deep breath, and the smell of green growing things fills up my lungs. And there is the scent of love-play too, the musk and the sweat of it.

There is life.

Oh Cutter, there is always life.


End file.
